Field of the Invention
The disclosed technology relates generally to semiconductor processing, and more particularly to integration of a metal-insulator-metal capacitor in the back-end-of-line (BEOL) processing of a semiconductor package.
Description of the Related Technology
Device downscaling in present day CMOS technology is leading to faster switching speeds of the transistors integrated with a higher density on the semiconductor wafer. However, in the final device, large current spikes may occur due to a large number of ‘simultaneous’ switching events in the circuit within a short period of time, which can cause considerable current-resistance drop and noise over the power supply network. Voltage fluctuation and power supply noise may impact signal integrity, speed and reliability of the devices. It has been shown that the addition of an on-chip decoupling MIMCAP (Metal-Insulator-Metal capacitor) can reduce this problem and enhance circuit performance. The MIMCAP can compensate voltage fluctuations by delivering charges to the power-supply network. However, its capacitance needs to be large enough to be actually efficient. In addition, low resistance and low inductance is needed to enable the efficient application of MIMCAPs at high frequencies. In present day MIMCAP designs, resistance especially is too high for this purpose because of the connections from at least one of the metallization layers to the top and/or the bottom plate of the MIMCAP. Such connections are established by via etching and filling techniques, typically increasing the resistance of the path from the metallization layer(s) to the MIMCAP.